


can you hold me

by wazoskis



Series: moments [2]
Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe, WandaVision (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Carol Danvers Messed Up Big Time, Darcy Has Powers, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Minor Darcy Lewis/Monica Rambeau, POV Alternating, POV Darcy Lewis, POV Monica Rambeau, Protective Darcy Lewis, i swear i had a plot somewhere, spoilers post ep 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 09:47:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29774298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wazoskis/pseuds/wazoskis
Summary: Carol Danvers tries (and fails) to make things right with Monica.
Relationships: Carol Danvers & Monica Rambeau, Darcy Lewis & Carol Danvers, Darcy Lewis/Monica Rambeau
Series: moments [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2176641
Comments: 3
Kudos: 56





	can you hold me

Darcy hasn’t slept in two days, mostly due to Monica’s increasing number of nightmares, and even some of her own, but she has coffee, and that’s good enough for her. Since their last mission went so incredibly wrong, S.W.O.R.D. has given them the next couple of weeks off to fully recover. Hex is curled up next to Monica, who, after what seemed like hours of a pattern of sleeping for thirty minutes, waking up gasping, and repeating, finally managed to fall asleep and stay asleep for three straight hours so far. The blackout curtains Darcy recently purchased seem to be working well, because her phone says that it’s nine am, yet hers and Monica’s room is still extremely dark. She’d go back to sleep herself, but just in case Monica wakes up again, Darcy wants to be there for her. 

The intercom buzzes signifying there is someone at the door and Darcy groans. She quickly gets out of bed and throws a sweater on over her sleep tank. Hex jumps out of bed and runs to go greet whoever is waiting outside. Monica lightly stirs at the movement but stays asleep. Sighing, Darcy follows Hex to the front door. When they get there though, Hex’s usual ‘excited to meet a new person’ attitude is gone and he instead starts growling. Darcy places herself between the door and her dog and opens it to find a tall blonde woman with short hair standing there. Hex continues to growl and Darcy shushes him “Hex, go to the couch, now.” 

The woman standing in the doorway smiles and that’s when Darcy recognizes her from the pictures Monica keeps in a tucked-away box. When Darcy originally asked about the pictures, Monica said they were too much, too painful to be out on display, and that was the end of that conversation. 

“Hi,” the woman says. “Does Monica Rambeau live here?” 

Darcy leans in the doorway and crosses her arms. “Depends. Who’s asking?” 

“I’m Carol. Carol Danvers.” Carol reaches her hand out and Darcy looks at it, then her. Carol lowers her hand awkwardly. “I knew Monica. She’s basically my daughter and I just want to talk with her.” 

“I don’t know if that’s the best idea.” 

Carol’s expression changes. Annoyance fills her face. “Listen, I don’t know who you are-” 

“Darcy Lewis.” 

“Okay, Miss Lewis-” 

“ _Doctor_ Darcy Lewis.” She’s still leaning in the doorway, not budging one bit. Monica hasn’t extensively told her about her relationship with Carol, but whenever she would talk about it, hurt bled through her voice. 

Carol sighs. “Fine, whatever. Just let me talk to her.” 

Darcy shrugs and shakes her head. “No.” 

Carol bites her lip in frustration. “Okay, what are you, Lewis? Her roommate? Friend? Co-worker?” 

“I’m her girlfriend, actually.” Hex comes up behind her and sits at her feet, no longer growling at Carol, but he’s still distrustful of her. Darcy can’t say she blames him. Darcy smiles, not because she’s happy, but to make the statement sink in even more. 

Her expression changes from annoyance and frustration to hurt, although Carol is clearly trying to hide it. “Monica never mentioned having a girlfriend…” 

“Yeah well maybe if you had been around more she would’ve cared enough to tell you about me.” Carol’s reaction is evidence enough that Darcy just crossed an uncrossable line, but she’s been through one too many tear-filled nights as Monica cried onto her shoulder over her now dead mom and her other mother figure who wasn’t around after she got powers to care about how her words might affect Carol Danvers. 

“Please, Darcy, just five minutes.” 

Darcy groans. “You know what, against all sense of best interest I’m going to say yes because I can tell you aren’t going to take a no from me for an answer, but if Monica says she doesn’t want to see you, then you leave immediately. Got it?” 

Carol sighs in relief. “Deal. Thank you.” 

“Don’t stress it.” 

+++

Monica is woken up by Darcy lightly rubbing her arm. “Huh?” she murmurs half asleep. Monica rubs her eyes and sees Darcy kneeling beside her. 

“Someone’s here to see you.” When Monica’s vision focuses, she can see annoyance and even hints of anger in Darcy’s eyes. 

“Who?” Monica jumps up and quickly fixes her appearance so it doesn’t look like she just woke up, even though that’s exactly what’s happened. 

“Her,” Darcy says as Monica’s heart drops to her stomach. “ I tried to tell her, no, but she was persistent, so I told her only if you wanted.” Darcy tosses a grey hoodie over to Monica, who catches it and smiles in gratitude as she puts it on. 

“Yeah um,” the wave of emotions that hits Monica causes her to stumble slightly, banging her knee into the bedpost. She hisses in pain. “I’ll go out there in a moment.” 

“Mon, look at me.” Monica looks up and sees Darcy sitting on their bed, all the anger in her eyes that was festering has been replaced with concern. “Are you sure you want to talk with her?” 

Glancing down at Hex who’s laying on the ground at Darcy’s feet, Monica shakes her head. “She’s…” Monica stares up at the ceiling, blinking away the tears that are beginning to prick at her eyes. “She’s hurt me, a lot.” 

“I know,” Darcy says sympathetically. 

“But my mom would want me to talk to her,” she sighs. “So I’m gonna at least try.”

“Okay… Do you want me to go get food or anything while you talk with her, give you guys some privacy?” 

Monica’s heart melts. What she did to deserve Darcy, she doesn’t know, but all she can do is just hug her. “Please. You’re the literal best.” 

Darcy pushes a stray curl out of Monica’s face and smiles at her. “Good luck. Call me if things go south, got it?” 

Monica nods. As Darcy leaves Monica turns to face the mirror. She’s shaking hard, and after a few deep breaths, she somehow musters up the courage to go face Carol Danvers. 

+++ 

“Your girlfriend’s a charmer,” is the first thing Carol Danvers says to her as Monica sits down on the loveseat, facing her mother-figure on the couch. Not ‘I’m sorry for leaving and never coming back’ or ‘I missed you and your mom’ not even a ‘How are you doing after Maria’s death?’ Nope. The first thing Carol says to her in twenty years is a passive-aggressive comment practically insulting her girlfriend. This conversation is already off to a bad start, and Monica just knows that it’s not going to get any better. 

"She's actually one of the sweetest people I've ever met. Darcy just knows a bitch when she sees one." The shocked look on Carol’s face would be comical if it weren’t for the fact that Monica is trying her hardest to not break down in tears and scream at her until her throat is raw from exerting her vocal cords. 

"Fury paged me, when Thanos, you know. And when I got to Earth the first thing I did was try to find you and Maria," Carol spits out, trying to change the subject. 

"Why didn't you come sooner?" Monica sighs. The shaking from nerves is coming back. 

"There were other issues out in the universe, Monica, you know this." 

Of course, the universe had to come first. Maybe, if she were still a naive ten-year-old, Monica would understand, but now Monica has her own powers, and maybe it’s selfishness but she hasn’t once pushed Darcy aside for the sake of the universe. Why couldn’t Carol have done the same for her family? 

"So Mom's cancer wasn't a big enough issue for you to come back?" Monica winces the second the last syllable gets out. Finally, the question she has been asking herself for the past year, ever since she came back, is out in the open, asked to the person it’s directed at. 

"That's not what I mean, Monica-”

"Oh really? Because that's what it feels like.” She interrupts her. “What were you even doing all those years, not that I care." 

_Oh really? Because you seem to care a lot, the little voice in the back over her head whispers._

"Political disputes, interplanetary wars, the relocation of refugees-" Carol is clearly trying to clear her name, yet failing to make it seem like she isn’t in the wrong in this situation. 

"-But not stopping a genocidal maniac." Monica shrugs. "You know if you had focused on bigger issues like Thanos, he never would've gotten the Stones, never would've snapped half the universe away.” Logical thinking is telling her to stop talking, she’ll say something she’ll regret or that she doesn’t mean. But Monica can’t hold the hurt in much longer, not when Carol just dropped by and is trying to act like everything can be okay with a quick chat. “I never would have lost five years of my life and more importantly I would've gotten to say goodbye to my mother." At the mention of never saying goodbye to her mom, the tears finally start, and nothing is going to stop them. "If it wasn't for you and your lack of action, I could've held her hand one last time!" There it is, the thing she doesn’t mean, even though deep down, Monica is pretty sure she means it. 

"I'm sorry, Monica.” Maybe she’s trying to be sincere, but for some reason, Carol’s “apology” feels like nothing but a slap in the face. 

"Get out," she says during sobs. Monica throws her hand towards the door. "Get out of my apartment, now!" 

Through blurred vision, Monica watches as Carol gets up and leaves without protest. She curls up on the couch, holding onto Hex who, somewhere during the (surprisingly short) conversation, laid his head on her arm, and just violently sobs until she falls asleep from emotional exhaustion. 

+++

Monica is woken up by the sound of rustling paper bags and jingling car keys. When she sits up she sees Darcy standing in the doorway, trying to get the door closed while also balancing two ginormous brown bags. Monica sits up and goes to help her, but Darcy shakes her head. “I got it.” She closes the door and drops the bags on the small kitchen table. “I presume it went badly?” Darcy asks as she sets the rest of her stuff down and begins digging around in the bags. 

“What gave it away?” 

“The tear-stained pillow and your bloodshot eyes.” 

“Oh…” Monica looks over the back of the couch, half expecting Darcy to look at her with nothing but disappointment. But when Darcy’s eyes meet hers, there’s not an ounce of it in her gaze. “I tried,” Monica finally says. “But I, I couldn’t, couldn’t talk to her. All I wanted to do was scream. I knew what she did hurt, but Darcy it was completely different having her sit there in front of me and try to act like things could actually be okay.” 

“Do you want me to?” Darcy holds her hand up and orange tendrils of her magic extend from her fingertips and wrap around her hand and wrist like vines. “Because I will.” 

Monica shakes her head, smiling slightly. The orange tendrils evaporate and a look of pride briefly washes over Darcy’s face before she reaches back into the brown bag and pulls out a square of tin foil. She grabs a burrito bowl and fork and then sits down next to Monica on the other cushion of the couch. 

“Grilled cheese,” Darcy smiles as she holds the tin foil square out to Monica, who takes it. All the pain and negative emotions wash away as she’s briefly comforted by the familiar smell. “With cheddar cheese,” Darcy adds. “Not American, because we both know that American cheese is not real cheese.” 

Darcy’s absolute and unwavering certainty in her statement gets Monica lightly chuckling. “Can you just, hold me for a bit while we eat?” Monica whispers. It’s not an unusual request, but her defense mechanisms are telling her to close herself off from everyone again, and the last thing Monica wants right now is to close herself off from Darcy. 

Darcy nods. “Of course.” She holds her arm out and Monica sits right up next to her, laying her head on her girlfriend’s shoulder. Monica leaves no space between them and Darcy somehow manages to pull her even closer. 

Monica takes a bite of her sandwich as Darcy begins to talk about a plethora of subjects that have no connections to one another, anything that could possibly take her mind off of the incident with Carol, and it works. While listening to her talk, all Monica can think about is how if she didn’t have Darcy, she doesn’t know what she would do, and she’s just glad she doesn’t have to think about that, and instead can just focus on whatever adorable thing Darcy is talking about. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hi thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed :)) 
> 
> I also just wanted to clarify that this fic is not an accurate depiction of my feelings surrounding Carol and she's actually one of my favorite characters, I just really wanted to write something along these lines, and did not hold back from the potential angst. Anyways thanks again. :)


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